A friend of mine emailed me an article titled “Home Schoolers make good citizens”.The first thing that ran through my mind was, “If home schoolers make good citizens, those parents are doing it wrong.”

Is being a good citizen even something we should strive to achieve? Should we teach our kids to be one? Or should we be and teach our children to be “good people”?

What is a good citizen?

One of the definitions of “citizen” in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary is: ” a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it”.

You can be a good citizen and not follow the non-aggression principle. In fact, a good citizen supports his government in aggressing against his own neighbor, and teaches his children this is good.

You can be a good citizen, and support the immoral wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, and actually, we are told you are a bad citizen if you don’t support every war or invasion the government decides it wants.

A good citizen will submit to a cop beating him and not show even the least bit of resistance. A good citizen knows that it is his duty to take the beating and, if he really doesn’t think he earned this form of protection, the good citizen can plead his case against the beating before a court, if he survives the beating.

A good citizen turns a blind eye to another good citizen getting beaten by a cop, knowing that the good citizen must have done something to earn this act of protection. To be a good citizen one must give every penny the government says he owes in taxation, and he must be happy about it, and about where the money is spent. The good citizen doesn’t “cheat” the government on his tax returns, knowing the government needs that money in order to pay for cops to beat him and his neighbor, and to fight the wars it wants.

A good citizen votes in every election he can, and accepts the choices the government gives him to vote for and on. A good citizen pledges allegiance to his government and doesn’t question anything it does, period.

No thanks.

A good person, on the other hand, knows it is wrong to initiate violence against his neighbor, whether his neighbor lives next door to him or in another country, and whether he does it himself or has his government do it for him.

A good person not only is against wars of aggression, but he speaks out against them, and teaches his children to live in peace.

A good person knows he has the right to defend himself, and that a badge and a costume does not give anyone the right to violate him, or his neighbor.

A good person does not happily pay the extortion money the government demands from him, and uses every loophole and opportunity he can to keep his property for himself.

A good person does not pledge himself to a government, but pledges to live in peace with his fellow man, and follows the golden rule.

To you Christians, the Bible says you are not even citizens of this world (Philippians 3:19), so why do you think it honorable to be good earthly citizens?

My wife and I homeschool our 8 children (this year they are using the Ron Paul curriculum), and I will not teach them to be good citizens; rather, I will continue to teach them to be good people.

We have to decide for ourselves if we would rather be a good citizen, or a good person. I don’t want to be a good citizen, in fact, I want to be a bad citizen.

Let us be good people. That should be our goal. That is what we should strive to be.

Joshua Bennett [send him mail] is a Father of 8 homeschooled children, Anarcho-Capitalist, Owner of Bighorn Enterprises trucking company, author and editor of Patriot's Lament blog and host of the Patriot's Lament radio program in Fairbanks, Alaska.